July, 1913. Notes on Turquois. 13 



sent by the Dalai Lamas to the emperors of China such gifts figure as 

 silk scarfs, bronze images, relics, coral, amber, pearls, incense and woolen 

 stuffs, but turquois does not appear. 



In the religious service turquoises are employed, strung in the shape 

 of beads, for rosaries, 108 beads being the usual number. The com- 

 plexion of the god or goddess to be worshipped sometimes determines the 

 selection in the color of the rosary-beads. Thus a turquois rosary is 

 occasionally used in the worship of the popular goddess Tara of whom 

 there are two principal forms, one of these being conceived as of a 

 bluish-green complexion.^ 



Turquoises are, further, offered on the altars of the gods, and their 

 brass or copper images are adorned with them. Buddhist images, thus 

 treated, may readily be recognized as Lamaist deities, as the Chinese 

 never adopt this method. The number of stones set in an image varies 

 according to its dimensions, and may reach from a half dozen up to a 

 hundred and more. In any case, however, this is not intended as a 

 mere ornamental addition, but the turquoises are to signify the actual 

 jewelry with which the deities are adorned, and which form part of 

 their essential attributes. One of the finest moniunents in Tibet is 

 the sarcophagus of the first Pan-ch'en Lama in the monastery of Tashi- 

 Ihunpo near Shigatse. It is of gold, covered with beautiful designs of 

 ornamental work, and studded with turquoises and precious stones. 

 The turquoises, says Captain Rawling,^ who has photographed this 

 gorgeous monument, appear to be all picked stones, arranged in patterns, 

 and in such profusion as to cover every available spot, including the 

 polished concrete of the floor. In the oldest temple founded in Tibet 

 about the middle of the eighth century, bSam-yas, which is described 

 at full length in the Annals of the Tibetan Kings, there was a shrine in 

 which the beams are said to have been of tiwquois; figures of galloping 

 horses of gold were affixed to them, while there were other beams of 

 gold \vith dragons of turquois attached.' This is the earliest Tibetan 

 record regarding carvings from this stone; if the beams of turquois are 

 not merely a metaphor of speech, it may be realized that the turquoises 

 were inlaid in a kind of mosaic. 



In the pictorial art of Lamaism jewels take a prominent place. On 

 the first scroll in a set of twelve pictures (m the collections of the Field 

 Museum, Nos. 121,371-382) representing the Eighteen Sthavira or 

 Arhat and the portraits of the Dalai Lamas, we see as the central figure 



1 Compare L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, p. 209 (London, 1895). 

 - The Great Plateau, p. 184 (London, 1905). 

 ' T'oung Pao, 1908, p. 33. 



